Arrested at 13, Freed 16 Years Later After Witnesses Recant
Thaddeus Jimenez said he didn’t do it.
But, after being arrested at 13 for a 1993 street gang murder, he was convicted and sentenced to 50 years in prison. Only after the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law took on his case and witnesses recanted did he convince Cook County, Illinois, prosecutors of his innocence.
At that point, they worked with the team representing Jimenez to get a judge to overturn his conviction, reports the Chicago Sun-Times.
Now 30, he has been freed after serving more than 16 years in prison. Attorneys from Katten Muchin Rosenman, working pro bono, were instrumental in winning the reversal of his conviction, according to an Innocence Project press release.
A Katten press release links to documents in the case.
A man arrested Friday in Indiana is a suspect in the murder for which Jimenez was wrongly convicted, but he has not been formally charged, the Sun-Times reports.
Jimenez may be the youngest person in Illinois history ever exonerated in such a case, Katten says in its release.
Additional coverage:
YouTube: “The Exoneration of Thaddeus Jimenez”
